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Lucio Fulci was on fire in the early '80s with a string of stylish gore films like The Beyond and City of the Living Dead . You can follow that trail of blood right on into The House by the Cemetery (1981), which was released just a year after The Shining , and lifts many of the same spook house ingredients: blank-faced kid with psychic visions, creepy ghost girls, and (due to budgetary constraints, I’m sure) a small stream of blood rather than an entire service elevator. Italian horror pays about as much attention to plot as a five-year-old in advanced algebra class, and House is no exception. It’s not that narrative logic was beyond him, but Fulci seemed to be competing toe-to-toe with rival Dario Argento ( Suspiria ) to see who could make the most non-sensical horror film. House comes awful close to winning the prize; blending ghosts, zombies and mad-scientists with several set-piece gross out effects. An over-the-top bat attack shows exactly why the director's bound...

An obscure title from Universal sure to satisfy film noir fans, 1946's Black Angel stars Dan Duryea as Martin Blair, a lovesick alcoholic songwriter whose ex-wife winds up murdered in her penthouse apartment. The guy fingered for the crime is sent to death row, but his wife, Catherine (June Vincent), searches desperately for clues that will clear his name. Blair agrees to help, taking her under his wing as a nightclub act to get information on the owner, Marko (Peter Lorre), who was also at the scene of the crime. Together they race the clock to stop an innocent man from facing the electric chair. Based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich (whose Phantom Lady has a similar ticking clock structure), director Roy William Neill's picture has a great time doling out alibis and red herrings. Of course, Lorre's character is the prime suspect and the actor delivers his deadpan performance with cigarette-dangling panache. But Duryea, who played mostly psychos and heavies throug...

While Alien and Star Wars provided low-budget filmmakers with a tough aspirational template, Raiders of the Lost Ark was an even harder act to follow. With its exotic locales and sprawling cast of characters, Spielberg and Lucas' creation didn't lend itself to a quick rip-off. Romancing the Stone managed to successfully recreate the formula to a degree, but most other attempts ( Treasure of the Four Crowns, King Solomon's Mines ) were obvious also-rans. 1986's Jake Speed tried to rip off Raiders and Romancing the Stone in equal measure, sporting at rough-n-tumble titular hero whose pulp adventures in a popular series of novels turn out to be based on his actual escapades as a hero-for-hire. Taking on a new case involving white slavers selling pretty L.A. girls in the wilds of Africa, Jake (played by producer and co-writer Wayne Crawford) goes toe-to-toe with a colorful Cockney villain (John Hurt) while protecting his client from assorted guns, knives and w...

Still required reading in trendy high school curriculums everywhere, Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse Five chronicles the semi-autobiographical time-traveling adventures of Billy Pilgrim, a rather passive protagonist who jumps between his past, present and future with jarring irregularity. Narratively, it makes for a wonderful metaphor on memory and how life experiences cumulatively impact our future selves. And, considering the editorial time-shifting abilities inherent in cinema, it should all make for a terrific movie. But for some reason George Roy Hill's 1972 adaptation fails to fire the right neurons. Vonnegut's dissertation on Billy's trials and tribulations is all present and accounted for, including time spent as a prisoner of both the Nazis and a race of intergalactic aliens called the Tralfamadorians. And cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek delivers a look and feel equivalent to the best European art films on display at the time. Make no mistake...

An off-putting mix of exploitation and social education, Hitchhike to Hell hides behind the skirts of public service announcements with the intent to scare kids straight about the dangers of thumbing a ride while at the same time providing copious amount of onscreen rape and murder. Director Irvin Berwick (best known for the Monster of Piedras Blancas ) had been slumming in soft-core for quite a while before putting this idea together with the help of film students from a course he was teaching at the time. And it's that very amateurishness, combined with grainy footage all shot on short-end film stock that gives the film a gutter-level shock value. Consisting of a wash-rinse-repeat scene cycle involving Howard, a nebbish dry cleaner employee, who picks up women in his delivery van and leaves their violated dead bodies by the side of the road, Hitchhike to Hell is too disturbing to be fun and too technically inept to be a lost classic (although casting the Professor from Gilli...

Although their collaborations aren't nearly as notable as Ford & Wayne or Scorsese & De Niro, the one-two punch of director Anthony Mann and Jimmy Stewart were a formidable team in the mid-50s. Paired up in a series of Westerns, starting off with Winchester '73 , the duo brought out the best in each other, with Stewart particularly enjoying a more "intense" onscreen persona than his previous romantic comedies ever allowed. The Far Country is their fourth mutual effort - and by far the most formulaic. Stewart stars as Jeff Webster, a cattleman whose last drive wound up with two men dead by his own gun. Wanted for murder, he escapes by steamer to Skagway, Alaska where the gold rush is in full force and the corrupt Judge Gannon (John McIntire) has a piece of every claim. Along with his sidekick (played by professional sidekick Walter Brennan), Jeff makes his way up to Dawson City where the community is under siege - physically and financially - by Gannon an...

Donald Sutherland has never been afraid to sully his reputation by appearing in genre films; perhaps because he rarely turns in a bad performance no matter what the context. And 1988's Apprentice to Murder is certainly nothing for him to be ashamed of. Based on a true story, Sutherland plays a "Pow Wow" doctor - or faith healer - whose skills fascinate a local teen (Chad Lowe) to the point where fantasy and reality become a bit confused for both of them. Director R. L. Thomas never event hints at the supernatural until mid-way through the movie, and then cloaks it under some choppy artistic ambiguity. Set in 1920's Pennsylvania, but shot in Norway with a keen eye for landscapes by frequent Kubrick collaborator Kelvin Pike, the film is a well-produced psychological drama rather than a horror film. All the actors - including Mia Sara of Ferris Bueller fame - perform exceptionally well, although the dramatic stakes never rise particularly high. When Sutherlan...

Based on author V.C. Andrews twisted take on the gothic fairy tale, this 1987 film adaptation - produced by Roger Corman's New Word Pictures - is curiously flat considering the subject matter. Imprisoned in the attic of their grandparents' country estate, four children (the product of an incestuous marriage) are kept out of site while their mother reasserts her place in high society. Louise Fletcher and Victoria Tennant lay it on thick as the abusive adults while Kristy Swanson (looking incredibly girl-next-door-cute) gets top billing among the tortured teens and tots. It's more than a bit shocking that Andrews' novel became such a rite of passage for the young adult crowd. The sexual trespasses are intentionally disturbing (the book features highly in Grady Hendrix's essential compendium of the era, Paperbacks from Hell ) and the movie, though rated PG-13, can't sugercoat them all, thankfully. Director Jeffrey Bloom's bigger sin is shooting the s...

TWO EVIL EYES: The stories of Edgar Allen Poe seem to lend themselves to modernization and adaptation more so than other classic authors of the supernatural. Likely because Poe’s work largely describes internalized horrors; grief, paranoia and psychosis that stem from demons within rather than demons without. Director George Romero had already proven the anthology format was still viable with the success of Creepshow (1982) so his collaboration with Dario Argento (a reunion of sorts after co-producing Dawn of the Dead) made sense, turning loose two genre filmmakers in a playground of the macabre. It’s obvious Argento was the more enthusiastic of the two. His take on The Black Cat includes several references to other Poe stories and is executed with the sort of visual verve the director hadn’t shown in years. Despite fan disdain, Romero’s adaptation of The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar is a worthwhile attempt, turning the screws on a gold digging wife (Adrienne Barbeau) as she consp...

Mental illness, besides being a trendy topic, is also a pretty touchy one. So using an emergency psychological facility as the setting for a supernatural thriller could very well have gone horribly wrong. But writer / director Billy Senese's The Dead Center treats it characters, both patients and staff, with a surprising amount of sensitivity while creating a palpable sense of impending interdimensional doom. Shane Carruth plays a therapist on the edge of his own nervous breakdown whose latest patient, a catatonic John Doe, also happens to be a carrier for some sort of soul sucking demon. This "mouth of death" claims a few victims on the ward, while a curious medical examiner puts together the clues that lead towards a climax of apocalyptic proportions. Since The Dead Center is an obscure indie, the apocalypse is definitely on a budget. But everything else about the movie is spot-on, especially the acting, which elevates the material to something much more inter...

A bio-melodrama with an emphasis on family squabbles over professional accomplishments, Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) is a first-and-foremost a showcase for James Cagney who uses his entire bag of tricks portraying make-up artist and silent actor extraordinaire Lon Chaney. Co-starring Dorothy Malone as the disinterested mother of Chaney's only child, the film takes quite a while to get around to the highlights of his legendary career, with a few reenacted snippets of Miracle Man and The Hunchback of Notre Dame . But Cagney is so compelling throughout that the personal struggles splashed onscreen - although often inaccurate - make for one heck of a life story. Arrow's brand-new restoration on Blu-ray is nothing short of jaw-dropping and extras include a spot-on commentary track from Tim Lucas, video appreciation by Kim Newman, image gallery and fully illustrated booklet.

If you're reading this then you already know nunsploitation is an actual thing, not some phony film genre dreamed up by precocious cinephiles. And director Giulio Berruti's Killer Nun (1979) is one of the more palatable entries in the sadomasochistic sub-category. Starring former pin-up Anita Ekberg (with a bit more baggage under her eyes...and everywhere else) as a mentally unstable, drug addicted, hot-to-trot physicians assistant who leaves a trail of dead bodies after her rounds on the psychiatric ward, the film steers into giallo territory with admirable results. Of course, there's still a good bit of sloppy sexual escapades, scandalously sacrilegious imagery and Joe D’Alessandro as a greasy MD, but the murderous set-pieces are surprisingly well done, set to a superb score by Alessandro Alessandroni. Arrow Video's Blu-ray special edition makes for the film's second appearance on hi-def (Blue Underground's version debuted in 2012). The transfer he...

Although built around an elaborate literary mythology - and even more convoluted series of TV and movie adaptations - the Ringu collection peaked with director Hideo Nakata's 1998 feature film of the same title. Ingeniously commenting on modern urban legends while incorporating classic Japanese ghost imagery, the film established the now predictable J-horror conventions (stringy-haired spirits, sparse visual style and a smattering of jump scares) and introduced a technological edge that made it all seem relevant. Investigating the unexplained death of four teens, journalist Reiko Asakawa uncovers a cursed videotape that kills viewers seven days after watching the images of a ghostly figure emerging from an old well. That figure turns out to be Sadako, daughter of a discredited psychic, whose rage at her murder transcends death and is transmitted like an electronic virus. Reiko, aided by her ex-husband, Takayama, whose own psychic abilities come in handy, attempt to break the...

Dismissed upon release as a "porn movie without the sex," 1972's Toys Are Not for Children certainly matches that description often enough, built around shag carpet, noisy wallpaper and painted ladies. Shot on the cheap, director Stanley H. Brassloff's film isn't pretty to look at; but that ugliness is a good match for the psychological baggage carried around by its main character, Jamie, whose childhood fixation on her absent father has left her a frigid mess, unable to consummate her marriage and obsessed with the toys of her youth. As the twisted melodrama careens towards a tragic conclusion, Jamie's friendship with a prostitute pushes her naively into the same career, turning tricks for men who see her daddy issues as nothing more than a kinky turn-on. But Jamie's emotional issues run deep, and Brassloff's film isn't afraid to go where you think it shouldn't. The sexual component, however, is never overt. And Toys is obviousl...

Beating Friday the 13th 's disfigured-man-child-stalking-the-woods routine by a good three years (depending on who you ask) 1980's The Prey has all the conceits of a routine slasher. But creative team Edwin and Summer Brown, whose previous experience was confined to pornographic features, deliver something decidedly left of center. Following three couples on an overnight camping trip who stumble into the hunting grounds of a monstrous gypsy burned in a forest fire, the film pads its short running time (in the theatrical cut) with Nat Geo-style nature footage of birds, raccoons and insects. Combine that with an often improvisational feel from the cast and The Prey sets an unusually soothing tone for a movie with the tagline "It's not human....and it has an axe!" It's a sleeper in more way than one. Fans raised on the more intense pace of '80s slashers are in for a snooze. But there's something so unique and likeable about this little-known k...

It's hard to keep a good Django down...or even a dead one, for that matter. Director Sergio Garrone's 1969 film might not be a direct sequel to the Franco Nero classic, but it's still better than almost anything else the character's name has been slapped onto, including Tarantino's re-imagining. Drifting into town like a vengeful spirit, which he just might be, Django (Anthony Steffen) hunts down the men responsible for abandoning their posts during a military attack. The opening sequence, shot with the stylized atmosphere of a horror film, sets expectations high. And even if the rest of Garrone's film can't match it, Django the Bastard is still well above the spaghetti western curve. Steffen's deadpan performance (he also co-wrote the script) is perfect here and manages to never spoil the surprise his character's supernatural origin. In that respect, the film is an obvious influence on Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter ...a...

From a filmmaker's standpoint, sequels are both a blessing and a curse. On the positive side of things, somebody already laid most of the groundwork ahead of time: building characters, arranging plot points, maybe even hinting where future stories could go. In the case of Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1984), the task should have been even simpler, since it was Craven himself who came up with the idea of a family of radioactive cannibals traumatizing any poor sap who wandered into their desert domain. But with seven long years between films, the writer / director seems uninterested in the after-lives of his iconic creations, saddling them with a blasé busload of second-rate victims who are barely worth setting the buffet. On the way to a motocross competition, some twenty-something take an ill-advised shortcut into the open desert and find themselves hunted by Pluto and The Reaper, surviving members of Jupiter's clan of cannibals, who've now taken res...

For all the claims of homophobia and outright fear mongering laid against Cruising (1980), its problems don't lie (entirely) within its admittedly dim view of one particular gay lifestyle. The flaws in director William Friedkin's film are much less scandalous than that; think script, editing, pacing, etc. And for all its attempts to shock the audience with hard-R scenes of lubed-up party boys seducing a wide-eyed Al Pacino, the biggest shock, ultimately, is that it lacks the courage of its convictions. In an attempt to catch the "homo killer," beat cop Steve Burns (Al Pacino) is sent undercover into New York City's underground gay club scene, a hedonistic world of casual sex and kinky fashion. Initially out of his element, Steve hunts down a few likely suspects while trying to maintain his "straight" relationship to Nancy (Karen Allen) on the side. But the perils of the job begin to take their toll, pushing Steve to take chances that will end the ...

In many ways, Klute (1971) is the logical result of a broken studio system attempting to create a new formula. The thriller aspects of director Alan J. Pakula's production, liberally lifted from latter Hitchcock films and Italian giallo copycats, offers up the seedy inspiration for '80s thrillers like Basic Instinct where both heroes and heroines are only a few moral notches away from the psychos they pursue. But with the new Hollywood ethos in play, Klute is allowed make up its own rules, explore (or in some cases ignore ) its characters, and linger where its inspirations could not. A New York call girl with theatrical aspirations, Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda) becomes a "person-of-interest" in the disappearance of a buttoned-down family man connected by a series of pornographic letters. John Klute (Donald Sutherland) is the private investigator with a vested interest in the case who also takes a romantic interest in his chief witness. As the pair track down le...

Cinema may combine the best aspects of art, literature and music...but it also has a healthy dose of vaudeville too. After all, putting on a show for those who can't afford (or appreciate) a night at the opera is what Hollywood was built around! So movies like Mother Wore Tights (1947) translate the vaudeville experience particularly well, rushing through various musical numbers while stringing together just enough narrative complications to fit the new playbill. Narrated via flashback by Mikie, the youngest daughter in a traveling troupe of family performers, she tells the meet-cut story of Mother (Betty Grable) and Daddy (Dan Dailey), a successful dancing duo whose stage lives become hopelessly complicated after they have children. Iris, the eldest, begins to resent her upbringing and enrolls in a prestigious prep school. But when Mom and Dad book a show nearby, resent turns to embarrassment, and the family business becomes a skeleton she'd rather keep in the closet. T...